"No need of that shit." He was glad Paul was around to
take care of his mother. She was vulnerable under the big smile; Oliver
often felt vaguely guilty and responsible for her.
She had done the same thing as _her_ mother: hooked up with an exotic
stranger--Muni Nakano, proper son of a proper Japanese family in
Honolulu. But, his mother hadn't stuck around for sixteen years. She'd
come back from Hawaii to Connecticut, pregnant, and eventually married
Owl Prescott. They raised him and Amanda, his half sister. His mother
had made a go of it in New England. Only once in awhile would she show
signs of her Italian childhood. "Topolino mio," she used to call him
when he was little and she'd been partying.
He poured a nightcap and put on a tape--Coltrane and Johnny Hartman.
I'm wasting my life, he thought suddenly. What am I going to do? He
knew that he needed to change, but it seemed hopeless. He looked at the
walnut boards. Maybe a box . . .
He sketched a little chest with a hinged top. He erased the straight
bottom lines and drew in long low arches. "That's better." The top
should overhang. Should its edges be straight or rounded? Straight was
more emphatic; he could always round them afterwards.
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